The amount of user intelligence and precision location technology capabilities available today is skyrocketing. Pair that with an audience that’s growing increasingly receptive to relevant messaging — the kind that happens where and when they’re most interested and delivers exactly what they need? You’ve got a revolution in targeting that’s touching every industry, says Prince Nasr Harfouche, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP.

“We see location data being used in insurance, corporate communications, banking, telecommunications, and more,” says Harfouche, and each use case demonstrates a new way for companies to unlock the potential of location-based intelligence.

With location data added as a new dimension of customer data, insurance agents gain an understanding of each customer’s pattern of movement and travel, delivering deeper insight into potential risks when they’re underwriting an insurance claim.

In banking, geo-location data is helping retail banks plan branch expansions and ATM placements. For example, in New York City there are so many ATM machines and so many different branches of the same bank.

“So you’re trying to look for the optimum distribution,” Harfouche says. “With geo-location data for their customers, they know the intensity, the frequency, and the pattern of movement of their clients in the city, which informs their distribution strategy — and that lowers costs.”

The telecommunications industry is able to harness geolocation data in a similar way, when they’re planning the distribution of their towers. In order to plan the widest coverage possible, telecommunications companies track and simulate geo-locations of users.

And real-time, streaming geoloaction is being tapped to combat money laundering and fraud protection, as well.

“If we see a credit card charge in Mexico and we know you are based in the U.S., we can instantly pinpoint your actual location and immediately flag it as a fraud if you haven’t left the country,” Harfouche says. “This use case can potentially help in money laundering, identity theft, and other types of fraud as well.”

Of course, there are privacy cautions in the use of any customer data, and it’s no different with location data. Companies need to take care not to violate country borders or the jurisdiction they are allowed to operate within. But Harfouche notes that if customers want to share their location, they actually have to make that choice. And even then, use of that data has to actually be serving a particular business case, especially if you have more sensitive data available, including a pinpointed location and a name. But when you’re looking at patterns and crowd movement, privacy issues should not pose a problem, he adds.

Customers are actually getting more comfortable, and even more enthusiastic, about sharing their location data, as use cases expand and the technology results in larger consumer benefits. For instance, real-time location data has been enhancing direction apps for years, and automated cars are on the way.

“Dubai is claiming that in 2020, they’ll have the first automated taxis,” Harfouche says. “That means live geolocation data connected in a solid network and perfected. To make that self-imposed deadline, both the technology and the government have to move fast.”

And as the technology evolves for every industry, it’s time for marketers to get on board the location data express. To learn more about how every industry can benefit from the power of location data, where to start, and how to win, don’t miss this VB Live event.